Lecture / Workshop 1

[Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989)]

Lecture 1:
Who? Where? How? What? Why?

Anthology texts to read:

• Bruce Chatwin: from In Patagonia (1977)
• Alberto Manguel: from The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1981)
• Peter Wells: 'Grin like a Dog,' from A Passion for Travel (1998)

•

coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt
– Horace, Epistles 1: 11, l.27

["those who cross the sea change skies, but not their souls"]

Travel broadens the mind. Or does it? Some would say that travel can have the opposite effect: narrowing the mind, confirming one's prejudices and presuppositions about other places and people.

What matters most, perhaps, is how you travel.

If you don't know who you are already, the mere fact of going elsewhere is unlikely to tell you. And there are some exceptionally crass - air-conditioned and hermetically-sealed - ways to travel.

The purpose of this course is to suggest some of the things you might like to look for when next you go travelling - and I would contend that that can take place as effectively within your own city or suburb as to some more exotic destination.

The trick is to work out what you in particular have to offer as a travel writer. What are your talents, your fields of expertise? The course readings will present you with a variety of successful (and less successful) approaches you can take inspiration from.

We'll therefore be beginning with some close analyses of other people's writing, but we'll then move on rapidly to invite you to apply the pointers you pick up from them.

Travel is fun, but it's also arduous - even dangerous sometimes. Sitting in a sunlit tropical bar sampling daiquiris may seem like the acme of happiness on a grim midwinter day with the rain pelting down, but it palls very quickly. Nor is it particularly interesting to read about.

So travel writing may seem like a pretty amorphous, come-one, come-all genre, but you still have to face that basic task of conveying something fascinating about where you're sitting to readers who may or may not ever be there themselves.

•


[Alberto Manguel & Gianni Guadalupi:
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1981 / 1999)]


Workshop 1:
Where have you been?

[plenary session]

“One of the minimum requirements of the travel writer
is that he or she be a good listener.”
– Holland & Huggan, Tourists with Typewriters (1998): 13.

Discussion of the course structure, assessment & nature of the assignments.

How we’ll be conducting the workshops – discussion of the prescribed texts and (in some cases) doing in-class writing exercises as a preparation for the assignments.

• What places have you visited – or lived in?
• What records do you keep of your trip(s) / residence(s)?
• What would you, personally, be interested in writing about?

[Peter Wells: Long Loop Home (2006)]